Xiaomi Aims to Double Smartphone Sales

Social media has played an important role in Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc.’s expansion – not just to build popularity for its devices but also to release key news.

Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi poses with the company’s logo in its office in Beijing, China.

Stefen Chow for The Wall Street Journal

Hugo Barra, the executive who left Google Inc. for Xiaomi in October, has dropped hints about Xiaomi’s imminent expansion into Singapore on his Google+ account. Meanwhile, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun also disclosed the company’s aggressive smartphone sales target for this year on his Sina Weibo account, China’s Twitter-like microblogging site.

The Beijing-based company is making its way into Singapore as part of its plans to expand outside of mainland China, where its low-cost but advanced smartphones are gaining popularity.

In recent months, Xiaomi has started selling phones in Hong Kong and Taiwan and it set up dedicated websites to sell smartphones in both markets outside mainland China.

Xiaomi aims to sell at least 40 million handsets this year, more than double the 18.7 million it sold last year, Mr. Lei said in a Weibo post on Thursday. He also said handset sales in 2013 more than doubled to CNY31.6 billion ($5.22 billion) from a year earlier.

Started in 2010 by Chinese entrepreneur Mr. Lei, Xiaomi builds loyalty in part by constantly tweaking its version of Google’s Android operating system with suggestions from users and by offering free weekly software updates. The model has won the company more than five million registered users on its Chinese forum and more than 100,000 on its English forum, the company said last month.

Xiaomi has grown its market share quickly and it ranked sixth in China, just after Apple Inc. as of the third quarter, according to the research firm Canalys.

Xiaomi has successfully created big buzz in China by selling high-end phones for prices close to cost. Its latest flagship e Mi 3 phone costs $330, less than half the price of top models from Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Mr. Lei, who has often been compared to Apple’s late founder Steve Jobs for his presentation style at product releases, has close to eight million followers on Sina Weibo.

Xiaomi is worth $10 billion according to its most recent round of fundraising. But analysts are much more divided over whether the company’s model of selling cheap hardware to make money off of services and accessories will match the level of excitement it seems to generate from its customers.